Born
in Rome in 1927, Fulci trained as a medic and worked as a journalist before enrolling at the
famous Centro Sperimentale Cinematografica in Rome and making his debut
as an assistant director on
The Last Days of Pompeii (1950). He worked
up the ranks quickly as writer and assistant director on a variety of
comedy projects and made his directoral debut with
I Ladri (1959)
starring the popular Italian comic Totó. Although this first effort was
quite poorly received, he went on to direct a variety of comedy films
throughout the 1960s with the rather low brow comedy pairing of Franco
Franchi and Cicco Ingrassia, in such films as
002 Agent Segretissimi
(1964) and
Operation St. Peters (1967). Although highly popular
domestically, these very Italian films were rarely exported. However,
Italian cult-cinema was really booming during the 1960s and becoming
popular across Europe and America, and although Fulci missed out on the
Pepla that dominated the start of the decade, he did find himself, like
most other directors at the time, shooting a
Spaghetti Western - the
underrated
Massacre Time (1966) a classic revenge saga with
Franco Nero
and George Hilton
1969 was the breakthrough year for Fulci.
Beatrice Cenci (1969) is often considered to be the director's best
film - a historical drama based on a real-life tale, that crossed
brutal torture with an authentic period feel, it also marked the first
non-Western role for actor
Tomas Milian. Although critically acclaimed,
the film did not perform massively well at the box office, and would
not be released in the USA for almost a decade. Far more important was
Perversion Story (1969), the director's first entry into the giallo
genre that had been simmering along in the background of Italian cult
cinema since
Mario Bava's early successes
The Girl Who Knew too Much
(1962) and
Blood and Black Lace (1964). Fulci's film starred the
beautiful Marisa Mell and contained a provocative mix of sex and
violence, marking his first film work in America, with location shoots
in Nevada and California. Although a rather poor performer at the
domestic box office, the film was widely exported and successful enough
that he was brought back to direct two more gialli after Dario
Argento's massively popular
Bird with a Crystal Plumage (1970) made the
genre the hot new focus of Italian cinema. Set in Britain,
A
Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) took the sex and violence even further,
with the main character, a repressed lesbian, taunted by vivid dreams
of sex with her libitarian neighbour who soon winds up dead. Mixing
surreality with a dense plot and all the music of swinging London, the
film was a marked contrast to Fulci's next giallo film,
Don't Torture a
Duckling (1972) - a grim thriller set in the repressed rural Italy; its
comparative lack of sex and violence made the theme of child-murder
very hard to stomach and it proved quite controversial on release, but
stands not only as one of Fulci's best, but one of the best giallo
films ever made. In between these two, Fulci returned to his roots with
comedy title
The Senator Likes Women
(1972), which unlike his earlier slapstick works, was actually very
politically charged - taking satirical gibes at the church and state,
with much resultant controversy - so afraid of it were the Christian
Democrat party, that they attempted to buy out the production at full
cost, to bury the film.
In
complete contrast to the rest of his filmic output, Fulci's next two
films were all-out family friendly.
White Fang (1973) was based on the
famous story by Jack London, and produced and co-scripted by
exploitation mogul
Harry Alan Towers, with
Franco Nero in the lead
role. Widely exported, the film made a huge amount of money at the box
office, standing as Fulci's most commercially successful film, and he
was soon brought back for an official sequel
A Challenge to White Fang
(1974), while the film's success spawned a series of unofficial
knock-offs over the next few years. For his next project he stayed in
the Old West for the much more adult themed
Four of the Apocalypse
(1975), a grim, late
Spaghetti Western starring
Fabio Testi and Tomas
Milian in a rare villaneous role, with some interesting touches but
nothing to recommend it. Fucli's last two all out comedies followed,
the tepid
Dracula in the Provinces (1975) with John Steiner curiously cast as a homosexual Count Dracula, and the Edwige Fenech sex
comedy
La Pretora (1976).
Seven Notes in Black (1977) with
Gianni Garko, was a semi-successful return to the giallo genre which was still
retaining its popularity with audiences in Europe and America. Less
popular now was the Spaghetti Western, which despite Enzo G. Castellari's
successful
Keoma (1976), had all but died out after the middle of the decade, so Fulci's third and final genre entry,
Sella D'Argento (1978)
was met with little interest and was not even exported. This was a real
down period for the director, and he found himself filming television
documentaries, including
A Man to Laugh At, about the comic Franco
Franchi.
Fortunately,
Fulci's rut was eased the next year. Dario Argento's edit of George
Romero's seminal zombie film
Dawn of the Dead (1978) was massively
successful in Italy and producer Fabrizio de Angelis was quickly
preparing an unofficial sequel. Impressed by Fulci's giallo works, the
producer signed both him and Dardano Sacchetti, writer of
Seven Notes
in Black, to work on the film. The end result was
Zombi 2 (1979) -
despite the rip-off promised by the title, a quite original and very
well made production that would become a massive global success,
leading to a massive boom in Italian horror films, and securing Fulci
in work for the next decade.
His next horror project would be the well crafted zombie film
City of the Living Dead (1980), but first he made his only entry into the
Poliziesco/Euro-crime genre with
Contraband (1980), an often very brutal film about rival gangs of smugglers, with a lead role for
Fabio Testi
- as well as violence that was strong even for that genre, the film was
most distinctive for its lack of police involvement in the storyline,
usually a genre staple. Teaming again with writer Dardano Sacchetti,
City of the Living Dead
contained many of the hallmarks that would distinguish Fulci's output
over the next few years, visceral gore mixed with often confusing plots
that bordered on possibly unintentional surreality and was the first of
three films he shot with the otherwise little known British actress
Catriona MacColl, known to most as his Trilogy of Terror. He quickly
moved on to
The Black Cat (1981), a very loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe
story, filmed in Britain. Leaving the post-production to his crew
members he returned to Fabrizio de Angelis' Fulvia Film Company to
shoot
The Beyond (1981), the
second part of his unofficial trilogy, and the ultimate example of his
almost plot free, gore centric style, often ranked as his best
film. The final chapter was
The House by the Cemetery
(1982), a twist on the classic Haunted House tales, shot in New England
and a big success for Fulci and Fulvia film, although sadly notorious
in English speaking countries for the appalling dubbing of child actor
Giovanni Frezza. Although Fulci had certainly pushed the boundaries of
screen gore, ever since his first entries to the giallo genre over a
decade previously, his next film was to be infinitely more
controversial than anything that had gone before.
New York Ripper (1982) was an Giallo
film about a serial killer who targets prostitutes in the eponymous city,
featuring some of Fulci's most vicious gore effects - it was made more
brutal by the lack of the surreal, fantasy setting of most of his
previous works. In Britain the film was banned outright, and famously
the prints of the film were escorted out of the country - it is still
cut by over 20 seconds on home video. An equally fascinating and
repulsing film, it was to be Fulci's last real triumph.
Although
rarely prasied by the mainstream critics, Fulci's films were beginning
to gain a cult following in the mid-1980s. However, the Italian horror
genre was always a very low budget enterprise, and the slew of quick
horror films that had followed in the wake of Fulci's
Zombi 2 had
saturated the market, while the increasing popularity of the American
horror fims was providing tough competition for even the dedicated
genre audiences. With his budget cut, and cracks developing between the
Fulci and his writer Sacchetti, their final partnership would be on
Manhatten Baby
(1983), which despite all the usual ingedients of surreality and gore,
simply did not gel. Fed up of de Angelis, Fucli willingly took an offer
from rival producer Gianni di Clemente to work in the newly popular
Sword and Sorcery genre, in the wake of
Conan the Barbarian (1982). The end result,
Conquest
(1983) is often considered to be one of Fulci's worst - a very slow
paced and unexciting production, in what ranks as the least inspiring
of the Italian exploitation genres. Fulci became tired of the
production before filming had even ended, and after completing the
shooting, he left all of the post-production and editing to his crew,
leading to a lawsuit from the producer as Fulci refused to shoot his
contracted second film. The dystopia, post-apocalypse films that
followed in the wake of
Mad Max (1981) were another short lived target for Italian exploitation cinema and Fulci was hired to direct
The New Gladiators
(1984), an underbudgeted film that does nothing to hide it, and the
first real sign of the lazy or simply tired direction that would dog
most of Fulci's later works.
The signs of change in the horror/exploitation genre are clearly visible in Fulci's next Giallo title
Murder Rock (1984), with a hip young cast and some very up to date music. In contrast, the surprisingly original erotic thriller
The Devil's Honey
(1986) is generally highly rated - the story of a young woman in a
torrid love affair with a musician, that is brutally ended by a
motorcycle accident leading her to kidnap and torture the doctor who
failed to save him. With his return to supernatural themes in
Ænigma (1987) however, Fulci failed to live up to this promise, and instead presented a generic
Carrie (1978) and
Phenomena (1985) rip-off that simply lacks the uniqueness that made his film's worth watching.
Having
lived with diabeties since a young age, Fulci was now growing very
unwell, and it was this is often attributed with his sudden departure
from the set of his envisaged return to form,
Zombie 3
(1988), the follow-up to his most effective horror film. Despite the
changes in the market, zombie films had retained their popularity
through the 1980s, boosted by George A. Romero's apocalyptic third
chapter
Day of the Dead (1985) and the entertaining
Return of the Living Dead (1985), however the European zombie pictures had gradually descended into all out exploitation by this time, and
Zombie 3
was completely unconnected to Fulci's earlier work, instead providing a
fast moving non-sensical storyline, with some gratuitous 'messages'
tacked on in an attempt to emulate Romero's work. Although affected by
his illness, it is believed that Fulci walked off the set after feuding
with writer Claudio Fragasso, leading to exploitation maestro Bruno
Mattei being brought in to complete filming, and ultimately leaving
just a few minutes of Fulci's work in the picture. In spite of his
illness, Fulci continued to work at an incredible pace. His self-penned
dark comedy
Touch of Death (1988) and the horror movie lite
The Ghosts of Sodom
(1988) were equally unimpressive, despite interesting concepts, and
with much of his trademark gore and violence missing. As the way the
market was moving, they were designed with televison audiences in mind,
and the next year Fulci helmed two parts of the Italian television film
House of Doom series (alongside two entries from Umberto
Lenzi), namely the feature length
House of Clocks (1989) and
Sweet House of Horrors (1989).
Despite
the poor reception of his most recent projects, Fulci was finding
himself the subject of increased attention towards the end of the 1980s
as his works were being re-appraised on home video in Europe, America,
and particularly in Japan. Italian producers were quick to latch on to
this, and Fulci added his name to a small series of horror films
released at the end of the decade, including Andrea Bianchi's
Massacre (1989) and Gianni Martucci's
The Red Monks (1988). He also elected to film a semi-autobiographical film
Nightmare Concert
(1990), playing himself as a horror movie director tortured by visions
of his own grusome movies, who believes he might be committing murders,
in a film that again boasts some interesting concepts, but is let down
by uninspired storytelling and direction. His three final
productions,
Demonia (1990) about an archeological group attacked by ghostly and vengeful nuns,
Voices from Beyond
(1991) about a man coming back from the dead as a spirit to help his
daughter investigate his own death and his final production
Door into Silence (1992) were met with little success. While
Voices From Beyond
(1991) is considered a minor highlight in the director's later oeuvre,
the other two titles are unwaiveringly presented at the bottom of his
achievements, the latter being most indicative of the decline in his
later work, with Fulci forced to direct under the psuedonym H. Simon
Kittay. He spent the next four years working on a remake of classic
American horror films
House of Wax (1953) and
Mysteries of the Wax Museum
(1933) to be produced by his nominal 'rival' and peer Dario Argento,
however his ill health left the backers with uncertainty about his
ability to direct, and the production was delayed until Argento had
completed work on
The Stendhal Project
(1996) and could supervise the production personally. Ultimately Fulci
died just months before filming was to start and the film was
eventually helmed by Argento's regular special effects man Sergio
Stivaletti and released as the forgettable
M.D.C. - Maschera di cera (1997).
Lucio
Fulci will doubtless remain one of the most recognisable names in
Italian cult cinema. His early 1980s horror films have attracted a
myriad of horror fans to his work, particularly thanks to the celebrity
fanboy Quentin Tarantino, who brought
The Beyond back to US cinemas in the 1990s. However, Fulci's oeuvre extends beyond the horror film, and while his work on films like
The Beyond and
Zombi 2
is equally proclaimed as genius or appalling, his work in the Giallo
genre is rightly acclaimed as some of the best in the genre -
particularly the distinctively realistic and disturbing
Don't Torture a Duckling.
So while most fans will 'discover' Fulci thanks to his horror works,
some further exploration will unearth a selection of gems, and it is
this that will lead to appreciation of Fucli as a fascinating, if
often inconsistent, director, and not just a one-hit wonder.
